


Reach For the Sky

by kealin



Category: Kuroko no Basket
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:33:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kealin/pseuds/kealin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a time when the only direction Aomine would ever look was up.</p>
<p>Now his proud back was bent over, his knees bending just enough so that he could squint his eyes and see where everyone else was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reach For the Sky

The trick, they often said, to walking high wire is to make sure you have your arms held up and away from your body if you are doing it “free hand”. To maintain balance, you should shift your centre of mass directly over your base of support, those being either your legs or arms depending on how you desire to cross the wire. Great concentration and care must be put into the task for a moment of hesitance or a misstep could lead to serious injury, or even death. Yet, the feeling of having made it to the other side was like no other. The knowledge that you had teased death, had walked across the almost empty space between two objects gave you a sense of thrill and adrenaline rush nothing else could give you.

Aomine could recall when basketball used to be like that. When playing, practicing, participating, living, and  _breathing_  basketball was all he knew. When he had to struggle, to fight, to push himself to the brink of exhaustion just to ensure his team won because victory had never always been a sure thing.

Victory had not always been something that was inevitable when he was on the court.

The trick in making it across the wire safely was to focus on where you placed your next step, to never look down because you would fall.

Lately, Aomine found himself constantly looking down from his high wire. There was no longer a need to keep his balance, no longer a need to be careful because he had crossed this wire so many times, had continued to raise it higher and higher so much so that when he looked down, he couldn’t see anyone else.

It was then that he realized how lonely it was to be at the top.

With nothing but the sky above him and the immense gap of space between him and the earth, Aomine was at the top of the world.

No one could touch him here. No one could reach him and those who tried, those who attempted to challenge his position on the wire constantly fell off. Kise tried the hardest, but Aomine could barely pick him out from how high up he stood above the world.

There was a time when the only direction Aomine would ever look was up.

Now his proud back was bent over, his knees bending just enough so that he could squint his eyes and see where everyone else was.

Because it was lonely at the top, because it was frustrating to have pushed himself so far, to have worked so hard only to find that there was no one else up there other than him. It made him want to question what all of his struggles had been for. Why had he worked so hard when there was no one else he could gauge himself against?

Where was all the challenge he had thrived under gone?

There were times where Aomine wanted to jump down from his wire because he was tired of waiting for others to reach him. Tired of looking down only to find others giving it their best to get to where he was, but never accomplishing something he had so easily done.

He was tired of watching them and seeing them have fun despite everything while all he felt was contempt for a sport that had once made him grin just as widely.

The trick to walking a high wire was to never look down because you would lose your balance and fall.

But Aomine’s eyes constantly glanced down pass his feet because somewhere along the way, he had climbed so high up that he no longer saw his shadow.

It was lonely at the top and there were times where Aomine would cover his eyes so that he wouldn’t see anything, be it up or down.


End file.
